How Annoying-I Was So Close!

Early the next morning, Kakashi woke Naruto and Sasuke from their sleep and began their special training.

"Your chakra control is far too poor right now." Leaning on his crutch, Kakashi led the three of them to a grove of trees. "Today's training is tree climbing."

He demonstrated it himself. Without using his hands, he focused chakra in the soles of his feet and walked up a tree standing perpendicular to the ground as easily as if he were strolling across a flat surface.

"Focus a suitable amount of chakra in the soles of your feet, continuously and steadily, and use its adhesive force... The principle is simple, but this is the best way to test a ninja's chakra control."

Sakura had the strongest grasp of the theory, and she quickly figured out the trick. Though she wobbled a little, she still managed to climb the tree.

Unwilling to be outdone, Sasuke tried several times, leaving a few deep footprints in the trunk before his talent finally carried him up as well.

Only Naruto couldn't manage precise control because of the interference from the Nine-Tails Chakra inside him. Either he used too much force and crushed the trunk beneath his feet, or he ran out of chakra and fell straight down.

"Damn it! Why can't I do it?" Naruto stubbornly tried again and again.

"Ling Xuan, aren't you going to give it a try?" Kakashi asked.

Ling Xuan nodded and stepped forward. He closed his eyes as if sensing something, then took a step a few seconds later.

His foot adhered firmly to the trunk. Then he took another step, and another...

Just like Kakashi, he strolled up to the treetop, then hung upside down from a branch, calmly watching the stunned group below.

"You... How did you..." Sasuke stared at him, his eyes filled with frustration. He'd had to work incredibly hard to manage it, while Ling Xuan had succeeded on his very first try—and had made it look effortless.

"Before taking a step, calculate how much chakra your foot needs to release and how much work is required to counteract gravity. Then execute it precisely," Ling Xuan explained calmly.

His answer, straight out of a physics textbook, left everyone speechless once more.

Over the next few days, Naruto and Sasuke threw themselves into tree-climbing practice, secretly competing with each other and refusing to give in.

As for Ling Xuan, once he'd confirmed that he had mastered the technique perfectly, he began his real "training."

Every day, he created a Shadow Clone that disappeared into the dense forests of the Land of Waves under the pretense of standing guard. Its real task was to search for Zabuza and Haku's hideout by examining the traces left behind by the battle and analyzing the surrounding environment.

Meanwhile, several other Shadow Clones never stopped working in a room at the orphanage. Some continued to work out the Flying Thunder God formula, some experimented with more advanced elemental combinations, and others used Haku's method of faking death to reverse-engineer the mysteries of the human body's meridians and pressure points.

In the isolated Land of Waves, time passed at a slow, oppressive pace.

In the blink of an eye, a week had passed.

For the Genin of Team 7, the experiences of that week had taught them far more than they'd learned in years at the Ninja Academy.

In the forest clearing that morning, Naruto and Sasuke were training furiously. They'd moved on from tree climbing to the even more difficult Water Walking.

"Damn it! I'm so close!"

Naruto was drenched in sweat, struggling to keep his balance with both feet on the surface of the water. The water beneath him rippled and bubbled as if boiling, showing just how immense and wild the chakra inside him was, and how difficult it was to control.

He could now manage to stand on the water for a few seconds, but he still had a long way to go before he could walk across it as easily as Kakashi.

On the other side, Sasuke was doing much better. His lips pressed tightly together, he stood on the water with steady feet and a focused gaze. His steps were still a little stiff, but he could already walk short distances. Under his deliberate control, his chakra flowed from his feet like a series of precise threads, forming a delicate balance with the water's surface.

Ever since he'd seen Kakashi's Sharingan and witnessed Ling Xuan's extraordinary intelligence and strength, Sasuke had been shaken like never before. He trained harder than ever because, for the first time, he clearly understood the gulf that separated him from the truly strong.

Sakura had been the first of the three to master Water Walking. Her excellent chakra control had shone through perfectly. But she didn't let that make her complacent. Instead, she spent even more time reviewing theory and asking Kakashi about basic Medical Ninjutsu.

The battle with Zabuza had made her understand just how powerless she was in a real fight to the death. She didn't want to be the person who could only scream and hold everyone back anymore.

Ling Xuan, meanwhile, didn't take part in this kind of "basic" training.

After mastering Water Walking perfectly on the very first day, he'd asked Kakashi to let him spend his time on "tactical planning and environmental reconnaissance" instead. Kakashi had agreed after giving him a long look. He knew perfectly well that this boy's growth could no longer be measured by any conventional training regimen.

At that moment, Ling Xuan sat cross-legged on the roof of Tazuna's house, eyes closed. His main body was deep in meditation, digesting and organizing the vast amount of information he'd gathered over the past several days.

His Shadow Clones had already become invisible shadows, spreading out to every corner of the Land of Waves to carry out the tasks he'd assigned them.

[Reconnaissance Clone, in the eastern forest of the Land of Waves]

The Shadow Clone was concealed in the crown of a massive old tree, suppressing every trace of its presence. Several hundred meters below stood an abandoned cabin in the woods. After spending several days analyzing the traces left by the battle and following the faint scent of medicinal herbs, the clone had finally found Zabuza and Haku's hideout.

Through the Eye of Truth, everything inside the cabin was clearly visible.

Zabuza lay on a crude wooden bed, wrapped in fresh bandages. His breathing was still weak, and he was evidently recovering from the period of feigned death. The masked boy, Haku, was carefully brewing medicine for him, his movements gentle and focused.

Haku's loyalty to Zabuza was absolute. It was both the source of his strength and his greatest weakness.

The clone's task was to watch them around the clock, keeping track of their every move until the decisive battle arrived.

[Research Clone, in a hidden cave somewhere]

Various plants and mineral samples collected from the Land of Waves lay before this Shadow Clone as it conducted biochemical and toxicological analyses.

Like a mad scientist, it greedily analyzed every substance in the world, turning them into tools it could use.